


hanging up your armor

by fairyuphoria



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cute Keith, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mentions of PTSD, Older Keith, Older Lance, Post-War, Soft keith, it's a lot of lovey dovey with some angst in between, only for backstory tho, they're so in love and its beautiful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16186808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairyuphoria/pseuds/fairyuphoria
Summary: Overthrowing a galactic totalitarian rule had been one thing but in Lance’s opinion… returning to Earth had been harder.After Lance returns to Earth and the war is over he finds himself completely lost and feeling more alone than ever. This is the story about how he finds himself, finds a home, and finds the love of his life.





	hanging up your armor

Lance let out a loud laugh, throwing his head back against the arm of the couch. Getting here had been hard, he’d admit that. Overthrowing a galactic totalitarian rule had been one thing but in Lance’s opinion… returning to Earth had been harder. Eighteen and naive and having just the slightest bit of hope left, he’d prayed he’d come back to the home he’d left that year and a half before. But of course, the world is never that nice. He’d just wanted one thing, well two, he supposes, but one of them high up on his list was to see his home again. He still felt guilty for not visiting over the spring break before he went ‘missing’, even now, ten years later. But how was he supposed to know he’d never see the house he grew up in ever again? That returning to the plot of wreckage settled on the beach would only make him sick and give him nightmares for years after. 

In the midst of war, it’s hard to picture your life without it and even harder when that time truly comes. The hardest part was watching the family he’d made for himself scatter across the world like flying shards from a glass that had slipped from his hands while he wasn’t looking. He really should’ve seen it coming, he feels foolish looking back on it, but still the empty pit from where his team once stood ached more than any wound he’d ever obtained in space. Then the nightmares started, where his brother would have to hold him down as he screamed, his mother trying to help with something she was never supposed to deal with, one worn hand pressed to his cheek. The constant feeling of edge, like something was coming, like he had to run, even while he sat with his family at breakfast, a peaceful scene, but Lance’s hand would clutch his fork, his index finger rubbing up and down the metal, wishing it was a trigger. His mother once told him he looked different, that he wore the weight of a war he was never meant to fight like armor, but that it was suffocating him- that she was scared she was losing her son to it.

But here, right now, years past that, a decade since he lost his home and then himself with it, he’d like to think he’s put away his armor. Hung it in the closet in the hallway of his small apartment, right next to Keith’s old jacket and a box of his dad’s memorabilia; it’s where they kept their ghosts. He’s rebuilt his home, not where he thought he would in Cuba, upon the burial grounds of his childhood memories, but it’s nestled in a bustling city, it’s sat on the couch across from him, cheeks flushed from alcohol and a hand on his knee. And he can’t help but smile, to let his restless hands finally find solace in the other’s- his finger no longer reaches for an invisible trigger. 

Finding Keith had, ironically, been easier than finding his sense of self again. After all of the times Keith had simply disappeared from his life: In the garrison, to the Blade of Marmora, into the quantum abyss for two weeks (or two years), and then one last time after the war. Though, he supposed after they’d returned to Earth, he’d always known where Keith was, but he more or so lost what they had, lost all sense of what he’d once known about Keith. He felt like a stranger. The first time he saw Keith, two years after and in the midst of Lance dealing with demons he didn’t have to tools to fight, it became abundantly clear that he no longer knew Keith. It was at a meeting, something about some energy that they’d picked up near Neptune, Lance honestly can’t remember anymore. He’d cared more about how Keith laughed, how he walked with this new air of confidence and strength that completely disagreed with the image of what Lance knew of the other. And he’d cut his hair. He’d cut his fucking hair. That alone was enough to make him cry after he’d returned home, he wasn’t sure why and it only made him feel even more stupid and pathetic. But he supposes it had been because he’d lost yet another thing that had once weighed him down, kept everything real, it was less about the haircut and more about his best friend. It took another year for him to reach out, well, actually, Keith was the first to reach out. A call in the dead of night, Lance had been awake, he didn’t sleep much in those days. He almost didn’t pick up, almost hit deny, sometimes he wonders how different his life would’ve been if he had done so- Keith likes to reassure him they would’ve found each other some way or another but he’s honestly not so sure. The call had been on a whim and Keith had almost ended it as soon as Lance had picked up, but Lance had begged him to stay on the line the second he’d realized the other was crying. That, in itself, was like a saving grace, like proof that even Keith, bright, self-assured leader Keith, was battling the same darkness. And suddenly he was no longer alone. 

So, here they were, seven years after the call that had changed Lance’s life. Keith’s too. Sat on the couch, both tipsy, in their Phoenix apartment. Keith had let his hair grow back out, explaining he’d only cut it in the first place because he needed a change that he was able to control back then, but that he liked it longer. Lance did too. He had learned how to deal with his inner turmoil, with the help of Keith at his side, it was kind of like co-leading Voltron, except somehow ten times as scary, in a different way. Keith pushes his toes against his calf, raising an amused eyebrow at the distant look on his face, “You’re thinking too hard,” He mumbles, his words slightly slurred, just barely. 

Lance blinks, looking to the other, his head tipped to the side to rest of the back of the couch, dark hair pulled away from his face. Lance smiles softly, picking up his champagne glass from the living room table, “Just thinking about you,” He chuckles. 

“Awe,” Keith coos, smirking, rapping his knuckles against Lance’s shin. “Don’t say shit like that, I might just fall in love with you. I already have a boyfriend, ya know?”

“He sounds like a loser,” Lance teases before tacking on, “Besides, I was just thinking about how you’re smelly and gross.”

Keith’s jaw drops in fake shock before quickly grabbing one of the throw pillows that had been abandoned to the floor half way through the night and nailing Lance in the face with it. “You dirty liar, little shit c’mere I’ma teach you a lesson, you punk,” Keith shouts before following the same trajectory of the pillow, landing on Lance’s chest, face half smooshed into his collarbone and neck. 

“Keith!” Lance yelps, moving quickly enough to save himself and the couch from being covered in spilled champagne, setting it on the table before the other comes crashing into him. “I swear the drunker you get, the fewer differences there are between you and Kosmo.” 

“I would say that’s a compliment,” Keith says smugly, lifting himself up to hover over Lance. A few pieces of hair have managed to worm their way out of their hold in the bun at the crown of Keith’s head and hung in the space between them, framing Keith’s face beautifully, bringing his attention to just how flushed the other’s cheeks are from the alcohol in his system. He smirks down at the other, violet eyes skipping between Lance’s own blue iris’ and then down to his lips. Keith bets they taste like champagne. His tipsy mind kind of wants to find out. Halfway to testing this hypothesis, Lance’s phone lets out a loud ring from the side table behind them. Keith let’s out a loud groan, flopping to the side of Lance, happy to be snugly pinned between the couch and his boyfriend. 

“Pouty brat,” Lance huffs out a laugh, rolling his eyes at the other before reaching blindly behind him until he finds his phone. He stares at it in contemplation for a few moments before pressing deny and setting it next to the abandoned glass of champagne. 

Keith stares up at the other in confusion, “Who was it?”

“Just my mom,” Lance says dismissively, sliding a hand onto Keith’s stubbly jaw. “Probably wondering when one of us is finally going to propose so she can start planning our wedding,” He teases. 

Keith frowns for a moments and then, Lance thinks, he says one of the stupidest things that has ever come out of his mouth in the fourteen years he’s known him. “Well, why don’t we? Get married that is?”

Lance blinks, once, twice, and a third time for good measure. “What?” He replies, finally. 

Keith rises, sitting on Lance’s thighs, giving the other a meek shrug. “I mean, why not? I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you, buy a house in the country, and have ten million rugrats or however many kids you said you wanted-”

“Five.”

“Five million rugrats,” Keith corrects, nodding. “Either way, I really do love you, Lance. I honestly… never thought I’d ever be able to feel this strongly for anything, much less a person, and much less love. There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to marry you.” 

Lance’s head is spinning and he’s almost positive it’s not because of the alcohol. “Are you… proposing to me?” He asks, dumbly. 

“Do you want me to be proposing to you?” Keith cocks an eyebrow and Lance can only balk, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. The answer is yes, he knows it’s yes and he’s pretty sure Keith knows it’s yes, but he’s kind of thinks his brain is short circuiting right now. “One second.”

And Keith is stepping off the couch, leaving Lance there to become a vegetable on the couch, alone, while the other did… god knows what. Maybe he was just joking? Did he really want to marry you, Lance? No, he replies to himself, well maybe, it’s not the first time they’d talked about it, but it was never… like this. Maybe-

He’s pulled from his thoughts by someone clearing their throat, finally shocking Lance out of his stupefied state, making his shoot up to a sitting position, turning to look to where Keith now was, hands behind his back. “What are you-”

“I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now and although this isn’t really how I imagined it-”

“Keith, what the hell are you doing?” Lance spits out, his eyes following the other as he slowly descends to the ground, propped on one knee, settled in front of him, between the couch and the coffee table. In his hands rests a small velvet box, carefully opened to showcase the sparkling silver ring on the inside. 

“I think this is kind of fitting for us, though, don’t you think?” And Keith has this bashful shy smile that almost makes Lance’s rapidly beating heart stop. “But uh, you know I’m not much of a talker, I don’t have a way with words the way you do, so I’m not going to try. But I am going to just say, Lance…”

The man in question holds his breath, as Keith looks up at him, eyes slightly glassy, and now that Lance thinks about it, it’s getting kind of hard to see too. Blinking, he feels the sting of his watering eyes. “I love you so much and I know I’m going to love you forever. Will you trust me with that and marry me?”

Those words are just enough to make everything in Lance, the resolve and dumbed shock held in his muscles, come crumbling down and he lets one of the tears finally slip down his cheek, grinning so hard his cheeks actually hurt, nodding so vigorously he’s pretty sure he’s giving himself whiplash. It’s like all of the memories they’ve had together flash around behind Lance’s eyes, leading up to this moment right here. The first time he saw Keith fly in the Garrison, completely enraptured and amazed. The pain of being ignored, not good enough, of Keith leaving. The joy of finding him again, flying alongside him. The emptiness of losing it all and the euphoria of building it up again with the person he loves more than anything. “Yes,” He says, hoarsely. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. 

And although Lance isn’t whole quite yet… he has a feeling he’s getting there.


End file.
